Saint Christopher and the Gravedigger

by Catherine Cookson

  Gran split yet another pea before turning to Florrie and stating in no small voice, ‘Summat must be done in that quarter. If that wedding goes through life won’t be worth livin’.’

  ‘It’s questionable whether it is now, with one thing and another,’ said Florrie with unusual tartness.

  Gran took the bowl of peas and placed it on the table and her tone was unusually soft as, looking at Florrie’s back, she said, ‘Try not to worry so, lass.’

  ‘How can I do anything else?’ murmured Florrie.

  The subject between them now, they both knew, was John, and Gran said, ‘Things have a way of panning out.’

  ‘It’s all right saying that but in the meantime he’s ill and he’s getting worse.’ Florrie was remembering the incident in the middle of the night, for she knew John hadn’t been dreaming, but like herself was wide awake.

  ‘I know what I would do if I had my way.’ Gran had returned to her pea-shelling and her voice had returned to normal, and when Florrie demanded almost angrily, ‘Well, what would you do?’ she just wagged her head as she replied, ‘I’ll keep it to meself, it’s better that way.’

  At this moment they both paused and looked upwards, for there came to them the sound of movement in the room above.

  ‘He’s up, then,’ said Gran. ‘What’ll happen if the doctor comes?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ answered Florrie wearily. ‘He says he’s going for a walk as far as the crossroads.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t do anything more. I can’t tie him up so I’m not going to say anything or try to stop him, and you, Gran, keep your tongue quiet when he comes down, mind you.’

  It was quarter to ten when John left the house and he was glad to be outside. His mother was too quiet and Florrie was too sad to be natural. He had told himself a number of times this morning that he wasn’t going to the crossroads. It had even come as a surprise when he had heard himself telling Florrie that he was going to take a dander along there. The crossroads was the last place he wanted to dander to, for within a few yards of it McNally and his gang were working. Yet here he was, going in search of the Devil, as it were.

  He took side cuts and turnings out of the village for he did not want people stopping and enquiring how he was, and the nearer he came to the crossroads, the more intense became his feeling of well-being. As this feeling grew, he looked from side to side expecting to encounter the reason for it, but he saw no one.

  When he came to the end of the Downfell Hurst road he took up his position near a farm gate and from there he had full view of the intersecting roads. Straight ahead at the other side of the crossroads, the men were at work and he could make out McNally’s huge frame shaking under the pressure of the drill. He turned his eyes away, for even in his present highly elated state, McNally still had the power to irritate him.

  He hadn’t been standing by the gate more than a few minutes before his interest became taken up with the traffic. It was thick at this time of the morning: large, heavy-laden lorries making, he supposed, for Newcastle; farm tractors; vans and private cars of all shapes and sizes; and sprinkled among them, motorcycles and a very occasional pushbike. Within a few yards of passing him, all the traffic was forced to slow down and he found his eyes searching each vehicle. He could not see into the high cabs of the lorries. Anyway, he supposed, they’d have more in common sense than to carry superstitious junk around with them—the men on the big lorries had their work cut out and had to depend on themselves, not on bits of tin.

  It was at the very moment this thought presented itself that he saw him again, standing not a yard away, leaning against the oak post of the five-barred gate. John closed his eyes then gulped. The first glimpse of the Saint still had the power to knock him off balance.

  ‘How many have you counted?’ asked St Christopher.

  ‘None so far,’ said John bluntly.

  ‘Oh, I’m peeved at that.’ The Saint was smiling broadly. ‘I reckon that eighty per cent of things on wheels have me as a passenger.’

  ‘And that’s when the trouble starts.’

  ‘I’m out to prove you wrong, John.’

  ‘All right, go ahead. I’m ready to be convinced but I know full well that I won’t be.’

  The roar that the Saint let out almost deafened John; it certainly drowned the noise of the passing traffic. ‘That’s as good an Irishism as McNally himself could bring out—you’re ready to be convinced but you’re determined not to be. Well, well. Anyway, that’s why we’re here this morning, John, and I’m positive that within half an hour I’ll have broken through the armour of your prejudice.’

  ‘You think so?’ said John. ‘Well, look at that.’ He pointed to an open MG tearing past them and drawing up practically within its own length behind a stationary car. The driver, like his car, looked smart, added to which he appeared blasé. In the lapel of his coat he wore a pin and on it a print of the Saint wrought in coloured enamel. It was really too minute for John to see but he knew instinctively that it was a St Christopher pin and he turned to the Saint and said, ‘Did you see that? He’s got you up and dashing along hell for leather.’

  ‘No, no, you’re wrong there, John. That man’s a good driver. He wasn’t dashing, he was driving fast.’

  ‘And you mean to tell me that’s good driving? And stopping almost on a hair.’

  ‘It’s because he’s a good driver that he could stop almost on a hair, as you term it. And let me tell you something, John.’ The Saint wagged his finger slowly at him. ‘It isn’t the fast drivers that are the menace on the roads today; no, it’s the slow ones, the cautious ones who keep their foot on their brakes. They’re always brake drunk, and they brake for anything and everything irrespective of what is behind them. As for that fellow’—the Saint thumbed the driver who was setting the car roaring off now—‘he’s never had an accident and he’s been driving for fifteen years now to my knowledge.’

  ‘It’s more by good luck than management, then, and because other folk have given way to him,’ commented John.

  Again the Saint laughed.

  ‘Well, look at this one coming.’ John was shouting excitedly now. ‘Weaving about like a butterfly and it’s a woman at the wheel… It would be. Aye.’ He pointed. ‘Look at the size of you on that windscreen. You’re so big she’s got to dodge to see past you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, now you’ve got me there, John,’ said St Christopher sadly. ‘She’s one of my worst cases. But there’s hope for her yet—she only learnt last year.’

  Both the Saint and John watched the woman come to a halt on the extreme left of the road, then, putting out her indicator and without looking either way, turn sharply right, cutting across an oncoming car in the process.

  When John looked in triumph at him, the Saint had one great hand shading his eyes, and when he lowered his hand he nodded to John saying, ‘All right, all right. I’ll admit everything you say about her is true. I have nightmares about that lady.’

  ‘She’ll be one of them somebody’ll be burying shortly,’ said John with a slightly pompous air. ‘She’s well ahead in the race to Kingdom Come.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said the Saint.

  ‘And won’t she be on your conscience?’ John was aggressive now. ‘If she hadn’t got you up and wasn’t relying on you, wouldn’t she be usin’ her head?’

  ‘No, she never would, for she has very little in it, John. I am really a form of protection… Not for her alone, but for those that she meets. You see, John, my presence in a car has a cautionary effect. People want to go fast but they’re slightly afraid so they call on me and say, now I’ve got you along with me I’ll be all right… But wait.’ He put up his hand like a signal as John was about to interrupt. ‘Let me finish. You must face the fact that people’s fear often makes them cautious—so although they go fast they are very much alive to the risks and their driving becomes better, and quite undeservedly they give me the credit for their continued safety.’

  ‘You’ve got it
all worked out, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, John, no. I’m just stating facts. I just happen to know people. I’ve been in the traffic business for a long, long time, you know.’

  ‘You’re as clever as McNally with your tongue.’ John now sounded surly.

  The Saint shook his head and smiled. ‘You will connect me with McNally, John, and I don’t know whether I like it or not. For I knew a man once who used to get my goat much in the same way McNally gets yours today.’

  John’s eyes widened slightly with questioning interest and the Saint nodded and went on. ‘It was when I was doing the ferrying job across the river. I’m a big man, as you can see, and I’m strong as any shire horse, but every day there would come one who was the spit of McNally and he would say, “Take me across, Offero.” As, you see, I wasn’t known as Christopher in those days but by the name Offero. And I would take him across and later in the day he would call me over from the far bank: “Come and get me, Offero.” And across there I would go and hump him on my back again, and always he would offer me payment by way of a wooden gourd full of a wine made from herbs that did strange things to a man. Now, I was working for the good of God but being of human nature, I had to eat, and when I wasn’t ferrying the good folk on my shoulders, I would till my piece of land. But I had very little time to give to the tilling and the produce from it was small, so the people to whom I did service were kind in their offering a piece of goat flesh or a gourd of milk and such that would keep my strength together. But this man, this man who was your McNally, he offered me nothing but the drink that I had known in the wild days of my youth before I had given myself into the service of our dear Lord, and he would laugh at me and say, “Go on, Offero, drink. It is like honey to the gullet.” And each time I sent up a prayer to my Master to give me the strength to refuse and my prayer was answered. But this man would drink from the gourd and he would sing and make jokes at my expense and at times I had to do a lot of praying, John, to stop my hands from swiping him one.’

  John’s eyes were wide now, and his mouth was slightly open. That was just how he felt about McNally. He couldn’t say that he himself prayed, but he knew that he always had to do something to curb the desire to hit out at McNally. He stared at the Saint. There was something about this fella that was really taking. Under other circumstances he could have found himself liking him.

  ‘You know how I got the better of that man, John?’

  John did not answer but shook his head and waited eagerly to hear the Saint’s solution to his particular McNally.

  ‘I turned the tables on him by giving him a dose of his own medicine, the medicine he relied on. I started to laugh at him. I not only pulled his leg, I pulled his ear. And do you know, John, he couldn’t take it. The leg-pullers of this world can’t stand having even their own toes tickled. You play a joke on a practical joker and he’s finished. You tease or laugh at a McNally and he doesn’t know which end of him’s uppermost—he just can’t take it. You try, John.’

  John could not see himself at this moment ever teasing or laughing at McNally, yet he knew if he could do it he would prove the Saint to be right—oh, if he could only take a rise out of McNally, just one time.

  ‘If you fear to do a thing, John, never put it off, for the next time you’ve got to make the attempt your fear will be doubled and on and on it will go. I’ve found that the best way to cure fear is to tackle it; get it by the throat and throttle it like all evil things.’

  For a man of peace, the Saint was looking very ferocious—just as if he had fear within his hands and was throttling it to inefficacy at this very moment.

  ‘Look, look, what’s up with you, man? It’s me, Broderick.’

  John flung the hand from his arm and turned round to face Broderick in the flesh. Definitely he was startled; Broderick had been filling his mind and he seemed to have conjured him out of the air. He had been so taken up with the Saint that he hadn’t noticed his approach, and forgetting the advice that he had just received, he barked, ‘Why do you have to jump on a man like that?’

  ‘Jump on you, John?’ Broderick’s head went up. ‘Why, man, I’ve been standin’ these minutes trying to get your notice. You’re not yoursel’ again—are you feeling under the weather?’

  ‘I’m feeling neither under nor on top of the weather,’ answered John facetiously. ‘I’m feeling all right, at least I was up till a minute ago.’ He gave Broderick a nod that left no doubt as to the implication of his words, and Broderick, nodding back, said, ‘Aye, well. Well now, John, that’s more like yourself, but a minute ago you didn’t appear yourself. Are you having one of your seeing turns?’

  John glared at McNally, denial on his lips, and then something made him turn and look towards the gatepost. The Saint was still standing there, and now he nodded sharply to John and John read the nod as if he had spoken aloud. Then finally, and for all time, the Saint made it impossible for John not to like him, for he winked at him, a large, slow wink that said, ‘Go ahead and give him a dose of his own medicine.’ John could not refrain from returning the salutation, so he winked back. Then explained his action briefly to Broderick by saying, ‘A pal o’ mine.’

  ‘In the name of God.’ It was merely a mutter from Broderick and then John, giving him his full attention now, said, ‘Aye, as you would say, I’m havin’ a spell of seein’ things, and achieved on the cheap an’ all, mind. I haven’t even to spend one and two on a pint.’

  Broderick’s expression now was so similar to the one that the Saint had predicted that John felt as if he had been injected with a dose of glee, and he laughed as he said, ‘Would you like me to tell you about it, Broderick?’ For the first time during their long acquaintance he had called his neighbour by his Christian name.

  ‘Well, not now, John.’ McNally had forced a smile to his face. ‘Me break time’s finished, but I’d gladly listen the night. That all right with you?’

  ‘Aye, that’s all right. The night will do me fine.’

  McNally was laughing again and refusing to be other than master of the situation. He went on, ‘I don’t know which of the two of you appeals to me most, John, the one that won’t open his gob not even if he’s prodded in the pants with a pin, or this other new one. This talking one; this Brodericking one. But anyway, whichever one you are, you’re always a great source of entertainment to me, John.’

  ‘I’m glad of that,’ John nodded at him genially. He could not do otherwise for a kind of impish geniality seemed to be oozing out of his pores like sweat. ‘And I hope you’re here for a long time yet to get amusement out of me. It’s to be hoped anyway that the dream I had of you last night doesn’t work out.’

  ‘You dreamt of me, John?’

  ‘I did,’ John nodded his head heavily. ‘And if it comes true I’ll have the sad task of shovelling the dirt on you.’

  ‘Now, John…’ cautioned Broderick, his face without the vestige of a smile. ‘Stop your jokin’ about things like that, and it the thirteenth by the same token. There’s things that shouldn’t be joked about. Even I know that an’ I’m a one for me jokes.’

  ‘I’m not jokin’ at all, McNally, honest Injun. I dreamt about you last night, and it was the first time in me life I’ve done it.’

  ‘Aye, all right, I’ll take it you did, John. I won’t doubt your word, but I’m not for hearing it if it’s all the same to you. Anyway, I must get back to work.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ put in John with raised hands. ‘I wasn’t goin’ to tell you. Black-robed priests and the polis are not in my line of discussion. I had enough of them anyway in me dream. They brought me out in a sweat.’

  ‘Name of God.’ McNally had turned away but was now facing John again. ‘And was I there among the priests and the polismen?’

  ‘Now I’m not goin’ to tell you. Go on, get back to your work.’

  Broderick had moved closer. ‘Just this, John, did you see a hospital in it—in the dream?’

  ‘No; no hospital.’

>   Broderick drew in a deep breath and then almost choked as John ended, ‘Only an ambulance.’

  ‘You saw an ambulance?’ It was a whisper from Broderick.

  ‘Aye.’ John nodded and waited. He waited in the most pleasurable state he had experienced in his life. So this is how it felt to pull another man’s leg; this is how it felt to take a rise out of somebody. McNally had had a lot of this pleasure at his expense but, considered John definitely, that was finished. If St Christopher had brought him a deal of worry, he had done him one good turn at least; he had taught him how to deal with McNally.

  John did not remember at this moment that he had received similar advice from Arthur and also from Florrie. Perhaps their advice had been ineffective because it was unaccompanied by illustrations, whereas the Saint was very good with his illustrations; so good he could bring the actual picture alive before your eyes.

  After a moment of watching McNally striding back to his work, John turned to the Saint again, and he saw at once that his face was one large conquering beam—a replica of his own, in fact.

  ‘You did that very well indeed, John. You’re to be congratulated on your first lesson.’

  John squared his shoulders and looked down at his bulging chest as he said, ‘Well, if that’s all there is to it I can’t see why I haven’t done it afore.’

  ‘Nor can I, John. But just to return to cars for a moment—or vans in this instance—will you look at this one heading up the road. Look at him nipping out and passing that car. And what for? They’ll both have to wait at the crossroads and to my mind he shouldn’t have taken the chance of passing.’

  ‘Nor to mine, either,’ said John gruffly. ‘But see who it is? It’s Duckworth.’ He turned and looked at the Saint and asked pointedly, ‘Has he got you up?’

  ‘Duckworth? Oh no, Duckworth wouldn’t have me up, John. He’s the kind of fellow who wouldn’t have the good God himself up. Duckworth doesn’t need any assistance from anyone; he’s a tower of strength within himself. At least so he believes.’